Thank you, Chair.
Minister, thank you for being here today.
I want to give you a little bit of interesting background—I think it's interesting—on what's been happening in this committee for the last year, approximately.
It was in June of this year that many of us went to Berlin for Globe G8+5, which was just before the G8 in Heiligendamm. The Liberals and NDP talked about our international credibility abroad. It was quite embarrassing to be there as a Canadian and have to face what happened over the 13 long years of Liberal inaction on the climate change file. They signed on—that was in 1993, when they were elected—and they promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; they did absolutely nothing.
So it was embarrassing. But Minister, I want to assure you that internationally there was a real optimism that we had turned the corner, that the rhetoric had ended, and that we were actually taking action. Our plan is very similar to what Japan is doing. We heard for the two days that we were there in meetings at that conference, in Berlin, the importance of focusing on solutions, as you are doing, Minister. We heard about carbon capture and storage and how important that is, particularly in Canada. We heard about the technologies that the world is hoping Canada will help create that will help the globe.
Minister, if I could ask you to turn back to slide number 4, it's relevant to what we heard when I was in Berlin too. They said....
I'm hearing some laughter. I would encourage the opposition members.... This is not a laughing matter; this is a very serious matter.
We were encouraged to come back and share what we learned here in Canada and look for solutions. Again, the government has provided a framework, and my hope is that we would, as a committee, focus on solutions. Carbon capture storage is the one. I've listed what we came back from Germany with: this list of solutions that we were assigned as a committee, internationally, to please focus on. “Canada, please focus on these solutions.”
Minister, unfortunately this committee has refused to focus on solutions, and what we see happening today is a focus on attacking the government instead of working on solutions, which I find very disappointing. The fact is, as that chart shows, that globally there is a huge problem, and Canada has committed to be part of that.
It was a week ago, Minister, that we had IPCC panellists here—we invited them—and on Tuesday of this week we had some people here. At the IPCC report, it was asked what would happen if emissions from Canada and the United States were dropped to zero—which is impossible, but hypothetically, if everything stopped in North America, what would happen to greenhouse gas emissions. We heard very clearly that emissions would continue to climb globally. That is why it is so important that Canada be a world leader in creating the technology that will help the rest of the world be able to bring down their greenhouse gas emissions. It was a challenge to which I was saying yes, because that's exactly what you're doing, Minister, and that's exactly what this chart is showing.
On Tuesday of this week, we also heard an example. A question was asked about aluminum. For every tonne of aluminum that is created here in Canada, four tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are created, but in China it's seven tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Your point and this chart support that we need to have not Canada, but globally all the emitters, participating. Without that, we will have growing greenhouse gas emissions, which means a continuing climate change crisis.
My question for you, Minister, is, in your opinion of a post-Kyoto deal, how important is it to have everybody...? You've elaborated on it, but looking at that chart again, how quickly do we need to get commitments from China, India, and the United States—all the major emitters—to start reducing their greenhouse gas emissions also and follow Canada's example?
Our targets are some of the toughest in the world: 20% by 2020, and 60% to 70% by 2050. How important is it that we get everybody involved, and how quickly?